


Something Important

by semele



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bonnie's hands always look like they were holding something important. Post-3x22</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Important

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _And I wonder why / I got dark only to shine / Looking for the golden light / Oh, it's reasonable sacrifice / Burn burn, burn bright_ , for penny-lane-42

Bonnie's hands always look like they were holding something important.

It didn't use to be like that, Elena remembers: Bonnie's idle fingers fiddling with a crayon or a bottle of nail polish. Or that one time when they both spent the whole evening curling Caroline's hair for the first time (back when, for Elena, curling hair just meant curling hair), and Bonnie just couldn't get it right. Then Caroline panicked, stormed into the bathroom and put her head under the shower. Elena isn't sure how Bonnie's hands looked at that moment, because she was laughing so hard she could hardly see through tears, but she imagines lean fingers covering Bonnie's mouth in a futile attempt to hide a grin, the sleeves of her bright yellow shirt surrounding her face like a shining frame.

Elena doesn't actually remember if Bonnie wore a yellow shirt that night, but it makes her feel better to think she did.

***

Caroline made a joke about them once.

“So, a vampire, a witch and a doppelganger walk into a bar...” she said with a wicked grin, and Elena laughed joyfully to not hear the end of the sentence. 

She remembers exactly when it happened: in that brief spotlight between finding the moonstone and learning what it meant. It only lasted for a day or two, and they made the most of it, a girls' night out, together with a movie and drinks. For some reason Caroline couldn't get enough of Bonnie, and Elena couldn't get enough of Caroline, relieved that she could talk to her again without thinking about Katherine. Even now Elena remembers everything, Caroline's hand resting leisurely on the back of Bonnie's chair, dumb jokes and how no one expected her to talk.

The night before the masquerade ball Elena had the most absurd nightmare ever. The town square was full of people, rage and torches and Elena was standing there with everyone, mute and terrified. The fire was rising higher and higher, because the stake was huge, just like in those creepy movies about witch trials. Elena couldn't get her eyes off it. In the end, the fire was all she saw: orange flames creeping up slowly and Caroline and Bonnie burning bright, oh so bright right in the middle.

Funny, how that was what she feared back then.

***

Right after Elena turned, she thought death would be the hardest part.

She never talked about it with Caroline, neither of them wanted to touch the subject, but Elena knows they both thought about it: Jeremy's death, or Liz's death, or Matt's death. Bonnie's death. Caroline sure as hell thought about Bonnie's death.

Elena tells herself they'll start talking about it in two or three decades, four perhaps, because now really isn't a good time. Now they should make the most of what they have.

So once in a while they meet up in Mystic Falls and spend the whole night in Bonnie's kitchen, just like old times. Bonnie makes decaf, because she's already had too much coffee at work, she prepares snacks, sometimes there's even ice cream if they're lucky. As soon as they have their drinks, she breaks out some new pictures, and Elena and Caroline grab them greedily, starved for news (it's been twenty years since they left home, and it will be at least another forty before they can go back for longer than a few nights). Bonnie tells them about the old mayor and the new sheriff, about yet another party and how no one in town believes in witches anymore.

The kitchen is beautiful, sunny and a little bit retro, so Elena comments on it. She starts a conversation about curtains and cutlery, so Caroline rolls her eyes impatiently and gets some shot glasses from the cupboard. Elena gets so confused she doesn't stop talking, but Caroline already fished a bottle of tequila out of her bag, and now they're in an impasse: Elena acting like they were all forty, Caroline acting like they were all twenty, and neither of them getting it right.

Before they can find a way out, Bonnie takes over the bottle and the glasses. Her hands look like they were holding something important when she pours the shots and cuts up limes. Suddenly, Elena feels utterly useless, so she moves to the counter to fetch some salt, it's the least she can do when Bonnie's adult fingers hold a knife like it was a memory.

When Elena lifts her glass, she wonders if she could get away with visiting Mystic Falls every _other_ year.


End file.
